The National Commission for Scheduled Castes on Friday accused policemen of raping and killing the Lakhimpur teenager, even as the Uttar Pradesh government filed a status report before the Allahabad high court on the CB-CID probe into the incident.
The commission, which had visited Lakhimpur Kheri recently to inquire into the death of the 14-year-old girl in Nighasan police station, spoke to the parents of the victim and made an on-the-spot assessment.
After the inquiry, the commission concluded that the girl was raped and strangulated and later hanged from a tree in order to pass it off as a suicide, the NCSC said in a release.
Director of the UP officer of the NCSC, R.D. Chandrahas, who visited Nighasan on June 14, went through the General Diary, “panchnama” and FIR and on its basis concluded that the girl was raped by policemen.
In order to save themselves and destroy evidence, they strangulated her and to project the girl’s death as a suicide, her body was hanged with a loosely tied “dupatta” from a broken tree branch which was as low as five feet and her legs were also found folded, the release said.
Meanwhile, the Allahabad high court fixed July 4 as the next date of hearing after the Uttar Pradesh government filed the status report on the investigation into the incident and asked the state government to file a complete investigation report.
The court, while hearing a petition by a local lawyer seeking direction for a CBI probe into the case, had asked the state government to apprise it by today of the status of the probe by the CB-CID or any agency.
—PTI